The Times WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1937. Manawatu’s 27 Local Bodies

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 40, 17 February 1937, Page 4

The Times WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1937. Manawatu’s 27 Local Bodies

Lying along tile West Coast of the North Island between the mountains and the sea, from Rangiwahia in the north to Waikanae in the south, is the district known as the Manawatu. By road-line, its dimensions are approximately 110 miles long by 30 niiles across its greatest width. Its area of almost 900,000 acres comprises but one-eightietli of New Zealand, but its population is approximately one-twentieth. The density of population is four times the New Zealand average. Were all the Dominion so populated, our numbers would be six millions instead of the present one and a-half millions.

To administer to the public requirements of this area and its population, are 27 distinct and independent local bodies. The list is a formidable one but it is proper that it be given: Firstly, there are six counties—Kiwitea, Pohangina, Oroua, Manawatu, Kairanga and Horowhenua; secondly, there are six urban bodies—the city of Palmerston North, and the five boroughs of Feilding, Foxton, Shannon, Levin and Otaki; thirdly, there are two power boards —Horowhenua and Mana-watp-Oroua. There is also a third electricity purveyor, a department of the Palmerston North City Council. Fourthly, there are six drainage boards, and also two river boards, though the Palmerston North River Board is to some degree allied with the City Councoil, and the Manawatu-Oroua River Board is really a board of the drainage boards. Fifthly, there are five miscellaneous boards. These are the Palmerston North Hospital Board, the Foxton Harbour Board and three rabbit boards— Manawatu, Oroua and Kiwitea.

That is the list —twenty-seven local bodies. Amalgamation is the desire of the Government and the question must shortly be faced as to what bodies should or could be eliminated. Consider the circumstances of a typical rural dweller in this district; indeed a parallel case could bo obtained almost anywhere in the Dominion, tin t us take a farmer in mid-Manawatu and list the local bodies that administer to his needs and to which he votes his representatives and pays his rates. There is tiie County Council, the Drainage Board, the Power Board, the Hospital Board, the River Board and Harbour Board. It is important to draw attention to this fact, however, that the spheres governed by these six bodies differ very considerably. They have to do with transport, drainage, electricity and health. Then, too, the various bodies exercise their jurisdiction over areas with distinct communities of interest and of greatly differing size in each case. Nebulous advocacy of or stone-walling objection to local body reform, has little value. To state that there are 700 local bodies in New Zealand; that is far, far too many and half of them should be amalgamated, does not solve the problem if there really be one. There is but one sound approach to the question and that is to take a known district and study itFundamentally, the right to decide whether or no any local body should be eliminated belongs to the ratepayers within that body. He who pays the piper has a right to call the tune. As has been shown, a typical mid-Manawatu farmer supports six local bodies and is in lurn served by those bo-Sies. Which, if any, does he consider superfluous? Which, if any, does he consider could be advantageously amalgamated? Large scale amalgamation might or might not result in a saving of about 6d in each £ of rates, but a greater saving cannot be anticipated. The service given might improve hut then again it might not. “The bigger the better,” is not a reliable motto.